governments control christians.. ruling bodies set by god himself!

[Baruch]

Great question TomFoolery.  The Founding Fathers (the leaders, not the peasants) were Freemasons and Christians (primarily the former).  This is why rights are inalienable.  And their metaphysics of that time would have said, they were extending that rule ... of rule ... to the the Middle Class, from just the Upper Class.  There would still be an Upper Class, only not as dominant nor as far away ... and non-property holders, women, Indians and slaves would be wards of that state, not real citizens.  We have since extended this democratically to all these excluded groups ... but I don't think the Elite believe in divine appointment ... though they look with envy on the monarchs of Europe.  Also since then we have basically ignored that rights are inalienable, because we assume our government bodies can do whatever they will to do, including curtail rights ... in our civil religion, the party or the branch of government, or level of government, is our new god ... provided the right people get elected, and those people make the right decisions, otherwise we can discard them at will also.  Today, Goldman-Sachs is doing "G-d's work" as per Lloyd Blankfein.  Certainly the neo-libs think that their shit doesn't stink, because they are doing what they do, pro-bono at the behest of George Soros.  The neocons less so ... they serve Pharaoh aka Warren Buffett.  The Koch brothers match up with the Pharaoh's magicians in the animated version of Prince of Egypt.

[TomFoolery]

I actually kept reading in Romans Chapter 13 and I'll be honest, Romans 13:1-5 is certainly ironic if you hate Barack Obama, SCOTUS and homosexuals, and somewhat vindicating for everyone else. And Romans 13:8-10 has wisdom even a bitter old atheist like myself could learn from.

1 Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.
8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 9 For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

[Baruch]

Unfortunately as Paul points out in Romans ... he knows right from wrong, but keeps avoiding doing right, and not avoiding doing wrong.  Also the quote on "love your neighbor" comes from the OT passage about loving the stranger aka Gentile.  This was an under text to first century Jews ... since they hated Gentiles and had good reason to do so (particularly after Paul's time).  Paul may have written things quite different, given what the Romans did to Jews for the next 100 years.

Also there is the problem with translation ... there are three Greek words for love; agape, philos and eros ... and Paul is using agape or communal love, not brother to brother love nor erotic love.  Also Paul could see the war coming, of Jew against Jew, and Jew against Gentile .. and was trying to prevent it.  For him, eschaton was the Kingdom of G-d on Earth ... which wasn't the man ... Jesus, but the community of messianic people (both Jew and Gentile) ... a kind of 60s commune.

The Jewish community in Rome, is who he was writing to.  A group that had risen up in riots not much before.  This community existed for 2000 years ... until it was betrayed to Hitler by Pope Pius.

[TomFoolery]

But isn't pulling apart the translation and going through it word for word and considering the original context of scripture a bit dangerous for Christians, a bit like a loose thread in a sweater?

[Baruch]

It is dangerous for Jews also.  The rabbinate is an ancient committee like the ayatollahs of Iran ... they don't like independent thinking.  Unfortunately for and English speaker, they have translation problems ... a Greek Christian wouldn't but would have anachronism and confirmation bias.  And of course most Jews don't care about the OT(Tanakh) ... the reading of the interpretations of the interpretations (Talmud) is sufficient for them ;-)

Yes, a bit like a loose thread on a sweater.  Originally the books had no verses, not chapters and no punctuation.  Just a continuous stream of letters (and in the Hebrew, with the vowels left out).  In Kabbalah, the OT is considered one long encoding of the creation of the universe, since creation was accomplished by the permutation of Hebrew letters.  Also of course, Gentile speakers have everything backwards ... since Hebrew reads from right to left ... the way G-d intended ;-)

[AllPurposeAtheist]

"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."

Does this only count with the old-school patriarchal monarchies? Like if we vote on someone, we take God's ability to control the government out of it? If that's the case, then it sounds like God isn't all that omnipotent.

If however God can control elections by moving the holy spirit through the hearts of voters, that would mean that anything those government officials did was an extension of God's work. Like the Affordable Care Act.

No no..The ACA was handed down by the reptilian, commie, Muslim,  Nazi, Black Panther god from Kenya. 

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Wait,  shouldn't all our laws just pop right out of the sky and nobody but god in charge of everything?
Oh wait. . God is sooooooo powerful he has to delegate power because he's to busy planning on who goes to H E double and who gets to float on clouds kissing his holy ass for eternity. .
Of course!  Makes perfect sense,  eh?

[Green Bottle]

Green Bottle ... I really sympathize ... my Scottish ancestors sympathize too.  Being Scottish is like being Mexican, except "too far from G-d and too close to England".  But don't Scots have an agenda?  Y'all know that the present Queen isn't a Stewart, right? (rhetorical question).  I feel sorry for the Highlanders that the last Stewart led to their deaths ... the Bonnie Prince should have stuck to the kitchen and his dresses, make a nice wife for someone ;-)

Yes Baruch our Agenda, get the fk away from Wastemonster and run our own affairs, but they will never let us go considering we subsidise them, and not as they would tell it, the other way about.
The queen, well she and her rotten family are a bastardised mix of german/greek/english an fuck knows what else, if we got our independance she , or whoever else was sitting on the throne would cease to be a legitimate scottish monarch, and that day cant come soon enough .
The last true king of Scotland was Robert the Bruce , who kicked the english arses at Bannockburn in 1314.     Sa'or Alba Gu Brath.

[Baruch]

Well I don't believe in bad blood, but y'all know, that since Queen Mary (wife of King George V) is descended from Dracula ... so is the present Queen:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/9656769/Prince-Charles-heir-to-Draculas-blood-line.html

King Robert The Bruce ... knew how to kick ass.  His brother Edward, not so much, otherwise Ireland would be a part of Scotland around 1300 .. long before the Galloglasses migrated there after the O'Neills were deposed in around 1600.

[KingJ]

http://biblehub.com/romans/13-1.htm

i wonder how christians keep going.. the bullshittery of their book never ends.

For your title to be correct we would need evidence of Christians kneeling to pagan leaders.

All this verse is saying is that we must be subject to the law / not resist it. Nero wants to kill us for reading the bible and singing hyms, let him kill us.

I do believe God has always had a problem finding good leaders  . Humans are useless at it.

[Baruch]

Christians kneeling to pagan Romans ... like the bishops at Nicea?  Eusebius wrote all about it in History of the Church ... and Eusebius was Constantine's bitch.  They then converted an out-of-state pacifist movement into an in-state government department of complete reversal ... including endorsing Christian's executing heretics and approving of Christian soldiers.  Protestants are just bad Catholics, right?  If they were the reinstitution of the pre-Constantine church ... they would have to be Jewish.